


Lost Year

by Liralen



Category: Hockey RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Lockout, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-21
Updated: 2011-03-21
Packaged: 2017-10-17 04:36:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Liralen/pseuds/Liralen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The '04-'05 lockout never happens (and does), and two roads diverge.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost Year

**SEPTEMBER**

 _Ottawa_   
****

 

It's late enough to be almost early by the time you slip through the door, keys fisted tight to keep them from jangling. Easy pressure on the deadbolt, shoes abandoned in the hall, and you know every unhappy floorboard in this house, every spot to step over to keep from making a sound. To keep from getting _caught_.

 

As if your absence wasn't noticeable, _pointed_. It's all about plausible deniability, and you... you could be named king of that country, these days.

 

You navigate the downstairs bathroom without turning the light on. It's a little challenge you set for yourself, to turn the taps to just the right temperature, find the soap and shower door and towel in the dark. There's a thick rind of moon low in the sky tonight, reflected in the mirror, but it isn't enough to see by. You don't have to keep your eyes closed to avoid catching a glimpse of your own face--the fucked-out haze in your eyes, the thumbprint shadows curled beneath them. The used swell of your mouth, soft and bruised. You know what you look like; you don't need to see. You shower in the still, warm dark and you never stumble anymore.

 

You've gotten very good at this game.

 

You brush your teeth twice and towel-dry your hair to long dark spikes before climbing the stairs to your bedroom, every step a careful arrangement, an offering to this facade that you keep building. You crawl under the covers, keeping to that invisible line that divides all couples' beds, and it doesn't matter that you're still damp, or that the pipes groan loud enough to wake anyone, or that Jason's slow, even breaths are too shallow, his body a little too tense and still to be asleep. That isn't the point.

 

The heat's draining out of these dying summer days, and nothing is slow and easy anymore. The wind kicks up at unexpected hours and scatters your excuses, and it's such a delicate thing: this space between you, this room you share. Blink too fast, and it will fall apart at your feet--and then what will you have?

 

What good will the truth do anyone if you don't have this?

 

He lets you lie. You let him pretend.

 

Summer's almost up.

 

 

 **OCTOBER**

 _Ottawa_   
****

 

The phone rings three times before either one of you moves. You're awake after the first ring, but you don't answer it because it's Jason's cell, and because you're in that warm sliding place, just skimming consciousness, where you could be asleep again in seconds if the world would just be quiet.

 

After the second ring Jason stirs next you, says, "Klondike Bar," all muffled with his face smashed into the pillow. He hiccups a soft laugh and it's one of your favorite things ever, that he laughs in his sleep, the dumb and easy sound of it. You slide a hand across the short distance between your bodies to press to his back, to feel his laughter against your palm, but before you can touch him the phone rings again, and he's twisting and groping for it, pulled just out of your reach.

 

"'Lo?" he mumbles, still worn soft with sleep. You shove the covers off and head to the bathroom, but something in his voice stops you halfway there, pulls your head around like the needle of a compass swings to North. Jason's sitting up in bed, spine straight, face wiped clean of sleep. His gaze is stark and openly fixed on you but you still can't read him. That's been happening more and more lately, but you  always feel surprised.

 

"Okay," he says. "Yeah, no, thanks for calling, really. I meant it when I said as soon as you heard anything. Yeah, call you this afternoon. Okay. Later."

 

His eyes are still on you when he snaps the phone shut, sets it carefully on the nightstand. Your skin prickles and you realize you've been standing there for a good two or three minutes in nothing but your boxers, but you can't seem to snap out of it, mind sending commands to your body that it flat out ignores. Your tongue's stuck with sleep to the roof of your mouth, and it makes a sound like ripping paper when you tear it away on his name.

 

"Jason." You think maybe his name should stick in your throat, some awkward cliche, but your mouth shapes each sound like it was made for that purpose. _Don't tell me_. "Tell me."

 

The spell breaks under your voice, life flooding back into his face---

 

  
_\---your voice, life flooding back into---_

 

and he's smiling, slow and broad,

 

  
_and he's looking away,_

 

slow and broad, dimples flashing,

 

  
_and he's telling you_

 

and he's telling you

 

  
_telling you---_

 

"It's over. They made a deal. Camp starts next week,"

 

  
_"We're going back to Bingo,"_

 

and you can't

 

  
_you can't even---_

 

and you can't even breathe.

 

 **NOVEMBER**

 _Ottawa(10-2-0)_   
****

 

Winter just won't happen. It's dragging its heels, churning up sleet and ice, but not the fat white flakes of snow you're waiting for. Nothing that could possibly wash you clean.

 

You think about telling him all the time. How light you'd feel, putting this secret down; newly forged from something stronger than blood and skin. You think about how his face would twist and crumple, how the truth would collapse him like a magic trick.

 

He can love a liar. He could never love you as an honest man.

 

The days keep getting colder. The team keeps winning. You don't tell him, and your mouth always tastes like someone else.

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (4-4-2)_   
****

 

You want to hit him. It's not exactly the first time--Jason has an older-brother sense of humor even with people older than he is, and it's earned him plenty of threats of a beat-down before--but the raw heat in it surprises you. You're not a fighter, on or off the ice, and while you may have a bit of a temper on you, you've rarely wanted to do violence to anything more than a crossbar or a spot on the boards that had it coming. But watching Jason now as he calmly sets down his bags and inspects the room, as he starts to open drawers and take down hangers and make this stupid house in this stupid city in this awful fucking bus league his own, you really want to hit him. It scares the hell out of you.

 

"How are you so _okay_ with this?" you ask plaintively, hands clawed in frustration. Jason looks up from the suitcase he's unpacking, surprise drawn Crayola-bright across his face, and you wonder for the hundredth time how many different conversations the two of you are having.

 

"Because...this is the way things are," Jason answers slowly. "I'm not--it doesn't make any difference whether or not I'm 'okay' with it, does it? I mean."

 

He looks away, hands moving mindlessly in the open suitcase, making chaos of carefully folded shirts and socks tucked into balls. "There's nothing I can do to change it."

 

You're silent long enough that Jason flicks a glance up at you. "Right?"

 

"I don't know," you answer, barely getting the last word out because everything suddenly feels frozen, all the air sucked from the room. Jason's staring at you, wide open but still unreadable for some reason, and you think distractedly that his eyes are the bluest things you can ever remember seeing.

 

The quiet stretches and thins like taffy. You feel caught up in it, hands and tongue tied, desperate for a breaking point.

 

Jason's gaze doesn't waver.

 

"What are we talking about?" Calm. Waiting. A hiatus in the storm, the air after a lightning strike, briefly discharged and blank, perfectly still.

 

"I don't know," you repeat, recognizing the next moment that it's the wrong thing to say, worse than nothing, but it's too late. Space is expanding between you--one mile, two, and the deafening boom of thunder. Jason's still looking at you, but his eyes are shuttered and dark, and you wonder how you ever thought they were blue.

 

 

 **DECEMBER**

 _Ottawa (23-5-2)_   
****

 

There's a party raging three hours hot in Ray's ridiculously pimped-out apartment. Of course there is. These are the circles your life spins in, and this is how you fall down.

 

The neighbors downstairs have already complained twice in two months, but the super is a fan who finds club-level tickets in his mailbox whenever the music's thumped a little too loud the night before, so no one worries about the complaints anymore.

 

There's a good chance the punch is spiked with something other than every alcohol on earth (the 'secret' part of 'super secret punch' is half a bottle of anything 80 proof or higher) because you lost the feeling in your hands after three cups, and while you still definitely _know_ your name, you're not sure you could pronounce it.

 

You came here in Jason's car, but the two of you split up awhile ago, peeling apart to talk to different line mates, mix different drinks, laugh at different jokes. You hang around Langer and Schubie, a solid combination of laid-back humor and good-natured crazy that keeps you laughing and drinking and not thinking too much. You catch glimpses of Jason across the room, mostly clowning around with Gratts and Ray like always. You're all stupidly young. You think about that constantly.

 

Anton drifts over and starts relating a story that consists of about five words of English interspersed with rapid-fire Russian and a lot of hand waving, but still has all three of you practically on the ground and crying into your cups. Anton smiles uncertainly, but seems pleased to have at least earned some attention and entertained everyone.

 

"Marian?" he asks. Marian is Anton's translator-of-choice, not because Marian speaks any Russian--he doesn't--but because, for lack of other Russian teammates, Anton relies on the other Slavs on the team to puzzle out some of the simpler words. He insists Slovakian is closer to Russian than Czech is, which doesn't make sense even to the Czechs on the team, but it does piss them off, so that's kind of good enough.

 

"Marian?" he asks again eagerly. When you shake your head, stops, thinking, then asks, "Jason?"

 

You frown, arching a brow at him. At least, you think you do. At this point you can't really feel your face anymore, either.

 

"Jason speaks Russian now?" you ask, surprised.

 

Anton smirks at the idea, shakes his head. He stares at you, clearly trying to figure out how to explain, and the bright red punch staining his mouth has to make it that much harder.

 

Finally, he points to you. "Jason. You, Jason."

 

You feel your face heat up, but Anton continues without seeming to notice. He draws your attention down to his hands, and you watch closely as he folds one hand into a peace sign, then points it down and sets his fingertips on his other palm, walking them across his hand like legs.

 

"You, Jason," he says, making his fingers take two 'steps'. "You, Jason, Marty, Marian." Step, step, step, step.

 

You glance up sharply, your face an entirely different kind of hot, and Anton still looks expectant and guileless, but you don't buy it. "I don't know," you snap, grabbing up your punch glass and pushing past him, and the Russian has the good sense to get the hell out of your way.

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (14-12-5)_   
****

 

The bus is going to break down. Every bump and lurch feels like an axle about to snap, and if it doesn't fall apart all on its own there's a good chance lightning will strike, burn it right down to the tires and teach you all a lesson for being out on the road on a day like today, not enough sense to come in out of the rain.

 

You're shoehorned into the bench across from Ray, playing five-card on, honest to god, an over-sized piece of cardboard spread across your knees. Every time you hit a pothole the cards jump and slide, and Bochenski makes an annoyed sound in his sleep and drives his sharp shoulder a little deeper into your side. It's not helping to improve your mood. Also, you're pretty sure Ray's cheating. Not that that's a surprise. Every time you've called him at it he's raised his eyebrows at you and told you to _cheat better, then._

 

You don't like the way his eyes catch and fix on you every time he says it. Like even less the way your traitorous skin goes translucent and bright with blood, so you've just stopped bringing it up. It isn't like there's anything else to do.

 

Jason's up near the front of the bus, talking the driver's ear off and goofing around easily with a big group of guys. They're bunched tight around Pothier and his shiny new Nintendo DS, first guy on the team to get his hands on one. Everyone's either demanding a turn or ribbing Potsy about who he had to blow to land one of the first console's off the line. Their heads are all bent together, voices interwoven, but you can still hear Jason's laugh ringing out clear above the others', stupid bleating giggle that makes you want to smile and smother him at the same time.

 

A couple weeks earlier Jason had pulled to a stop on the sidewalk and all but glued himself to the window of a Gamestop displaying pictures of the new DS, nose bent down against the glass in a way you'd previously only ever seen in movies. You'd gone home that night and called up an old friend from the Q whose brother taught English Literature at a university in Japan, trying to see if there was a way to get your hands on one before they hit stores in North America.

 

There wasn't, but the guy had called back the next day after a chat with his brother to tell you that the portable Playstation was coming out in Japan six months before it reached the U.S., and his brother might know a guy who knew a guy, and were you willing to spend a little money to see what he could do?

 

Watching Jason's face now as he flickers between delight and envy, you get the same warm feeling flooding your stomach that you did when you told your buddy that money was no object. Just the idea of Jason's stunned look when he tore off the wrapping paper made your heart trip faster; the shock in his eyes shifting to joy, his excited babble running so fast you wouldn't be able to understand a word of it. The image makes you stupidly, uncomplicatedly happy, and something must show on your face, because Jason looks around for you at that moment, and when his eyes find yours across the bus he breaks into that wide, easy smile that is your favorite thing in the known universe.

 

You grin back, flush and look away, and it's only then that you realize Ray's been watching you silently for the last few minutes as your thoughts carried you away. You clear your throat and smile an apology, staring down at the cards in your hand.

 

"Sorry. Um, who was...?"

 

"My turn," Ray says. He tips his head a little, eyes narrowing in a little smile. "Got any kings?"

 

You've already plucked the king of clubs from your cards and begun to hand it over when Ray's laughter hits you. You jerk your head up, meeting his smirk with confusion.

 

"We aren't playing 'Go Fish', Toine," Ray says. He reaches for your cards and folds them back into the deck with his, starts shuffling and cutting and shuffling again. Slants a look up at you through his lashes, sly as any cat. "Want to take a break? Stretch your legs?"

 

You can't find the double-entendre in there, but you blush anyway, sure there is one that you're missing.

 

"No, I am good," you tell him, motioning impatiently. "Come on."

 

Ray sighs and shakes his head, but he taps the deck straight and starts dealing out fresh hands. He's humming under his breath--he usually is--and you don't pay attention until you pick up your cards and hear his quiet voice murmur the words, _"There's none so blind as those who will not see."_

 

 

 **JANUARY**

 _Ottawa (31-10-3)_   
****

 

Jason goes down with a knee injury late in January. It isn't the first time his body's failed him, the stress of the season grinding through his bones until the cracks are big enough to show, but it's not something anyone really _expects_ , either, and Jason takes it hard. He isn't much of a sulker, usually, but when the doctor says six weeks and that's if everything goes _perfectly_ , well. Jason digs his heels in, fixes on his most obstinate glare, and settles in on the couch for a good long sulk.

 

It's a strain on a relationship already pulling at the seams, unraveling at the corners and spilling wisps of stuffing. You try to smooth out his creases, coax him out with you when he's restless and stick closer to home when his mood turns dark, but nothing helps. You try to make him laugh, and you still know him well enough that sometimes it works, but when it falls flat it's like the earth's fallen out of orbit. You can sense him starting to resent you—your health, your freedom, the light and easy way that being 22 falls across your shoulders. Or maybe that's all in your head; maybe there's nothing underneath his voice when he says _go out, have fun, of course I don't mind. No sense in both of us being stuck here._

 

You go out. You have fun. You stop asking if he minds, and pretty soon you stop worrying that he doesn't. It's not like you want to think of him at home waiting for you, longing. It isn't like that at all.

 

Because it isn't like that, you start going out more often, staying out later, because he never protests, never calls you back, never begs you to stay in. Which is good. Healthy. Just because you've been in love with him since you were 19 doesn't mean that he should be your whole world. Your world is big, noisy, full of color and light. It's made of open doors and open hands, just waiting for you to take; and if Jason is the constant thought that rides every decision, pulses through you with every drink and watches every clumsy-rough fuck that whittles you thinner and sharper night after night, that's no one's business. That's nothing you have to admit to anyone, even yourself.

 

You've given up on ever really being free of him, you see, even if free of him is the last thing you really want. But you don't have to make it worse. You don't have to let him _know_. When the time comes for him to shatter you—always _when_ \--at least you'll know you didn't load the gun.

 

For what good that will do.

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (25-14-5)_   
****

 

The thing about the way the two of you look at each other is that you never look long enough to read anything in each other's eyes. You watch him when his attention's somewhere else, someplace safe, and when you're turned away you can feel that second-sight itch under your skin. It's always been that way. He burns you from a hundred paces. Pretending otherwise is a matter of survival; you'd be stupid to let yourself stare at the sun.

 

You laugh and you dance and you drink until you're thick with it, mouth numb with tequila, the stupid meat of your tongue pinpricked and studded with salt. Someone's hands are holding your head up, counting off the double-time run of your heart, feeding you shots; it doesn't matter who they belong to. Melted down inside your skin like this, every touch is good. Every smile is easy. Everyone likes the way you shine.

 

Everyone wants you. It slips across the oil slick of your mind, fails to click into place: not your thought. You let it shudder through you, let it snag your pulse and kick it to overdrive. Someone else's thought, someone's whisper in your ear. Someone's hand in your hair, just right. Just fucking right. Jesus, you're drunk.

 

"As a kid at Communion," Jason murmurs, amused, and you wonder how long you've been thinking out loud. You're terrible at keeping anything to yourself when you're like this, all your secrets soaked through and transparent against the light.

 

"Blasphemer," you accuse, getting most of the sounds right. "Never get to Heaven with that mouth."

 

"This mouth gets me most everywhere," he mumbles, pushing the words into the hollow of your throat, and against 22 years of pious Catholic guilt you think that Jason could probably corrupt the angels themselves and buy salvation on his knees. The image shouldn't make you this hard. It really, really shouldn't.

 

His fingers are sticky with lime against the curve of your bottom lip; you can feel them dip and pull with every syllable. You lick sloppily over the tips, drawing them deeper into your mouth to nip and suck, tonguing the rough pads. A soft bite earns you a hitched breath, dragging out into a rough moan when you curl your tongue and suck hard, noisy wet and shameless sounds.

 

The hand in your hair twists gently, fists and tugs; the shots line up and heat explodes in you.

 

"Easy," he soothes, lips on the column of your throat, kissing away your trembling. It levels you, the simple grace of the gesture, the tender heat. You wonder if he can see it—the way your breath falters, the way your pulse loses rhythm, the fever that eats at you.

 

You wonder where the noise of the party's gone. You try to open your eyes, to set the world back on its feet and find yourself again, but everything is moving. There's no solid ground in sight, and no legs to stand if you could find it. You're so fucking drunk. You can hear yourself saying it this time, but you can't stop. You can't make it stop.

 

You pass out for a little bit, maybe, because there's awhile there where you don't have any thoughts at all, and then suddenly it's dark, and cool, and you realize you're home. You know from the way the sheets smell, the way your body rolls a little to the well-worn dip in the mattress. The way you know anything. You're alone, and it hits you badly, an ugly panic clawing up through your chest and out your ravaged throat: JasonJasonJason _JasonJason---_

 

"Hey-hey-hey, shhh," he whispers, instantly there, conjured up by your cries from the far-away depths of the bathroom. "Easy. S'okay, I'm here. Easy, baby."

 

And that's, well---"Not a baby, shut up," you insist, because it's easier than dealing with the tight clench of your chest and trying to figure out if it's good or bad.

 

"Sick," you moan, turning your face into his chest. He smells clean and warm, still damp from a shower. "Jason, feel so sick."

 

"I bet. You're about 50% alcohol right now; just wait 'til how good you're gonna feel in the morning."

 

He sighs, but he doesn't sound angry, not exactly, and he lets you press your sweat-slick face against his skin and breathe him in.

 

"Gonna feel like dead," you say, curling all around him, tangling up. Holding on. He laughs, kisses your hair.

 

"Mm-hmm. I'd tell you to remember that, next time, but I know you won't."

 

"Love me anyway," you mumble, a whisper-worn plea, and then before he can answer, thank god, you black out.

 

 

 **FEBRUARY**

 _Ottawa (36-13-5)_   
****

 

You feel it coming clear as a hurricane, green warning on the skyline and an old ache in your wrist. There's nothing special about tonight; you filled the last four hours with shots and music you don't like played too loud, slow grinds on the dance floor and rushed hand jobs up against the bathroom door. You know it feels good, but you don't always remember what good means anymore.

 

You're falling-down drunk by midnight and closing in on sober again by the time the lights start to go up. Sick, hateful feeling slicked across the wall of your stomach, sobriety; over-fucking-rated. You try to charm the bartender out of "one more for the road", give him your best smile, the one that says _I'm a nice little Catholic boy who always brushes his teeth and says his prayers._

 

Chris is wrapped around you, beyond gone and defying some very basic laws of physics by remaining upright. The bartender looks at you like something he stepped in and turns away. It's starting to feel real familiar these days.

 

"Don't go yet," Chris mumbles in your ear as you call for a cab, leaning your whole weight against the wall. "Not playing tomorrow, you don't gotta go back. C'mon, c'me home with me, pretty."

 

"Can't." His teeth graze your ear and you shudder despite yourself. "Know I can't. Late enough as it is."

 

"So what's the difference if it's a little later, then? He won't care."

 

That burns. It's surprising how much that hurts, the desperate, childish urge bubbling up to shout that it isn't true, take it back.

 

"Fuck you," you spit, pocketing your phone and pushing away from Chris a little too hard, jaw tight and set.

 

He lashes out and grabs your elbow, fingers digging in hard. Jerks you back to his side. Makes you meet his eyes. Fuck.

 

There's hurt clear under a sneering veneer of anger. "Fuck me? Fuck _you_ _,_ Toine. I'm not a dog you can call to your side and then send back to its crate."

 

He gives you a little shake, mouth thin and eyes still struggling to conceal pain. You're the worst person in the whole world.

 

"G'on, then," he slurs. "Go run home to him, you little bitch."

 

And oh, wow, that hurts in so many different ways that you can't even count them all before he's gone.

 

You don't get home til sometime after two, but there's a light still burning high up in a second story window that looks out from your bedroom. Even the porch light is off, that glow a single accusatory eye staring you down as you fumble at the front door in the dark. You keep missing the lock, digging shallow scratches in the paint.

 

The moment you make it inside the house, all you can think about is escape. Running back the way you came, running past that; running and running until you don't know where you are, until you can't be found. Chris sent you a string of text messages on the cab ride home, half a dozen clumsy-drunk versions of "I'm sorry", and you think about just taking off again, going to his house after all and seeing just how sorry he can be.

 

You turn it over in your mind, hold it up to the light. Trying to figure out if this is something you _want_ _,_ when it feels more and more like you don't want anything. You want to not be here. All the time, wherever you are, you want to be somewhere else. Someone else.

 

The light's still on upstairs, spilling through the railing and carving fat wedges of grey and black in the floor at your feet. You sit on the couch for a long time watching the stairs, waiting for the darkness to stretch and pull apart, for Jason's long, warped shadow to slide down the wall and find your. You're still watching an hour later when the light goes out and the door swings shut with a soft, solid click.

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (28-18-8)_   
****

 

It's been two and a half days since Jason spoke to you, longer if you don't count his steady, slightly irritated call of "open!" in practice. He isn't _not_ talking to you, as far as you know. There doesn't seem to be a point or a punishment to his silence. He just… doesn't seem to have anything to say. To you.

 

It hurts possibly more than it should. Certainly more than you'll admit. You keep trying to call to mind that night at the bar, the special curve of his sticky-sweet smile that was just for you, the sure knowledge of his hands undressing your body, but it could have been another country, another lifetime ago. You don't remember much, everything underwater, smeared by a haze of alcohol and heat. What you can remember doesn't seem to warrant any of this; the wild swing of his affection, the calculation in his eyes whenever they meet yours.

 

You find yourself watching him, open and incautious, and by the time you realize it you have no idea how long you've been doing it. By the time you realize it you know you can't look away. Not until you've found whatever you're searching for in him.

 

You let the silence drag on another half a day, deep into the night before it hits you that all this time you've been watching, all this time you've been waiting for him to talk to you, you haven't said a word to him, either. It's a stupid, laugh-out-loud thought that shocks you in the middle of making toast at midnight, and when the toaster pops up it scares the hell out of you, makes you jump and gasp and laugh that much harder.

 

There's a shift and creak of leather in the other room where Jason's playing video games, and Jason pokes his head into the kitchen, lifts both brows in silent inquiry as you cling to the counter and try to calm your breathing, weak with something near hysteria.

 

"I am okay," you gasp out, resting your forehead against the cabinets and biting your lip as another shiver of laughter trembles through you. "I am, hah, I am okay. Think maybe I need sleep."

 

Jason snorts softly, nods, and starts to turn away, but he stops when you say his name.

 

"You want some toast? I just make six pieces. I do not know why." It threatens to set you off again, looking down at the enormous toaster that you'd filled automatically, without thought. Then you look up and Jason's looking at you with something almost soft in his gaze, and you don't know what you feel, exactly, but you don't feel like laughing anymore.

 

"Okay," he says, "thanks."

 

The three-days' silence bursts open inside you, flooding your chest with heat. Jason doesn't seem to notice as he moves to the cupboard next to you, takes down plates and piles up the toast, spreading jam and halving each piece on the diagonal. He hands you a plate and settles next to you to eat, leaning back against the counter, hip pressed lightly to yours, shoulders casually brushing every time he lifts another bite to his mouth.

 

It doesn't feel entirely natural, and from the glances you sneak sidelong between mouthfuls of toast you can read an answering tension in the lines of his body and the set of his jaw, a <i> _waiting_ </i> to match your own; but it's been three days, and even if it isn't perfect, it feels alright.

 

 

 **MARCH**

 _Ottawa (48-15-6)_   
****

 

It turns out no one much enjoys being second choice. You're first choice for more than one person, after all, and you're still not having fun.

 

Chris breaks it off late in March, just as the regular season is sprinting to a close. He actually starts to say, "It's not you, it's---" before he catches himself. Force of habit. You both laugh at that, but it isn't comfortable. It feels awkward now, trying to trade the skin of lovers for friends, and you wish, not for the first time, that you'd never taken it off.

 

There's no one to blame.

 

Well, okay. There's definitely someone to blame, but focusing on just how badly you've fucked everything up isn't going to make you feel any better.

 

It gets a little easier, after that. Not fucking anyone on the team uncomplicates things immediately, and you sleep better after a while, woken less often by the nightmares, the sharp clutch of dread in your chest. You stay out just as late, but you don't worry about constructing an alibi or double-checking your pockets for anything that could incriminate you.

 

You never keep any of the phone numbers they leave tucked into your wallet or scrawled across your hand, the nameless, faceless men that fill your nights. There aren't so many of them—you're careful, despite what anyone thinks or says behind your back—but there are enough. Enough to keep you busy, corral your thoughts when they drift to dangerous places and tie them down to here and now, body satisfied and mind numb. You don't ask for more than that.

 

You lose friends. You probably should have predicted it, but you didn't, too focused on getting through each moment to look ahead to the next. Between the guys on the team who hang out with Chris and the ones that are close to Jason, there aren't many neutral parties, and the ones left just think you're generally a dick. It's hard to argue with them.

 

Despite how weird everything gets, the team plays better than it has all season, and it stops being a question of whether you'll hold onto the division and becomes a matter of how many rounds you can manage to snag home ice.

 

If Jason notices the sudden spike and shift of tension in the locker room or the fact that you go out and more and more by yourself these days, he's gracious enough not to mention it. Things continue relatively normally between the two of you, and that's—that's a good thing. That has to be a good thing.

 

You only sort-of-maybe talk about it once. It's the night before a game day, a ten o'clock practice scheduled for the next morning, and you hadn't planned on going out, but Jason comes down from a shower looking and smelling really fucking good, and you can feel that itch flare under your skin. You want to put your hands <i> _all over_ </i> him, and you can barely look at him, afraid he'll read it in your eyes. You're already pulling on a jacket and hunting for your wallet before you realize he's watching you.

 

"Um," you say, palming the back of your own neck, off-guard and out of sorts under his attention. "I think—know it's kinda late, but I'm gonna—"

 

"You don't have to tell me, Toine," he cuts you off. His mouth quirks without humor as he says, "I don't want you to tell me."

 

There's a strange light to his eyes, a drag of emotion through his voice that you'd give anything to understand before he clears his throat, turns his gaze to the television and says, "Have a nice night."

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (38-20-11)_   
****

 

It's not a new sensation, the shame burning you up inside, but it feels different in this moment. You're used to the dull, steady throb of it like a bad toothache; an old fracture that complains when the weather gets cold. Standing here now, looking into Jason's too-blue eyes, the resigned set of his mouth trying to hide the hurt, shame is a hot stab in your stomach, bright and alive. It's the lightning flash of a fresh break, pulsing with your heart, driven jagged with every breath.

 

You love this man. This sleep-rumpled, heartsick, impossibly tired 21-year-old who slid into your life with so little effort and fucked it all up. You're in love with him, with every part of him--still, despite, even after. It shouldn't surprise you, but it does. You didn't know. You let yourself forget.

 

He opens his mouth and his voice is nothing but a rough croak until he swallows, licks his lips like he's bringing words back to the surface along with blood.

 

"It's late," he says, voice 3 a.m.-soft. He pauses, drags a hand over his mouth and looks away from you, face angling down and to the left so that you can see the whole long slope of his nose, the glittering flash of one eye. "Where are you going?"

 

The heat rises in your face, guilt and shock; that he said it, that he gave it a voice, if not a name---this uneasy peace, these longing looks flung between you from the edges of a chasm that runs deeper every day.

 

You can see the same flush creep up his cheeks, down his neck, and you want to look away, but you can't. You don't know how to lie, looking at him like this, and your mouth doesn't remember the shape of the truth.

 

"You know where I'm going," you manage at last, some thinly forged compromise in between, and Jason still won't look at you, but something in the tight line of his shoulders seems to loosen, ease.

 

"What if I told you not to go?"

 

"Jason..."

 

"Just--just what if I asked you. What if I asked you to stay?"

 

You make a desperate attempt at telepathy, try to read all the layers under those simple words, try to get him to meet your eyes. You can't seem to find your balance in the dark, anchored only by the faint streetlight falling on one side of his face, picking out the paler threads in his hair. Somewhere across the city someone is waiting for you, but you're unmoored here in the dark with Jason's words, can't find the way back to shore.

 

"Do you want me to stay?"

 

"I think---" and your hearts seizes at the word, but he isn't finished, "think I really kind of _need_ you to stay."

 

You get stuck on all these strange little details. The blue of his eyes and the angle of his jaw, the way his attention never leaves you but he can't quite settle; the tiny movements of throat and eyelashes and hands. They're alien thoughts, romance novel-imagery and it should feel stupid, but it doesn't, and somehow that's even worse.

 

It took a long time to acknowledge the shudder of heat that warmed your stomach when Jason looked at you, months of sidelong glances and stammered excuses, feinting away from a lingering touch when what you wanted was his hands on you all the time. It took even longer to put a name to it. Want. Lust. Hunger. Even sweat-soaked and panting in his arms, still high from things that were going to send you to Hell, you were still always _hungry_ _._

 

Hungry for more of him, for anything. He'd keep you naked and writhing for hours, leave you fucked-out and dazed in his bed, and the moment he smiled at someone else you were hungry again.

 

Painful to admit how much you needed him, yeah--but _impossible_ to think that maybe, just maybe, he needed you even close to as much.

 

"I'm sorry." It comes out weak and rough. Trying to breathe past the sudden pressure in your chest, the crazed wind-milling rush at the back of your head telling you this may be your last chance to fuck this up. "I... Jason, I am--"

 

"I know." Jason shakes you off and dredges up a smile, faint in the uncertain light. "You don't have to--" He blows out a breath, and there's something about how old he looks right then that reminds you how young he really is. "Just. Antoine. Please, just—"

 

It's only when you trip over the top step that you really register that you've moved at all; up the five-six-seven stairs between you until you're close enough to see the way his throat trembles and jumps when he swallows. The flicker-swift dart of his eyes from your face down to your curled fingers and back again, and his hands fall open like a catch being released.

 

"Please," Jason says. "Can we just start over again?"

 

Not reaching. Not grasping at anything. Waiting for you to come to him.

 

And maybe that's why it's easy to unfist your hands and fit your palms against his. Maybe that's why you can breathe again, even though it feels like something's trying to fight its way out from beneath your ribs, because this moment—this inexplicably shy-smiled, hopeful man—isn't even close to what you thought you needed. Maybe you're starting to figure out just a little bit that you don't have the first clue what you need.

 

Maybe you still just can't say no to him. It doesn't really matter, because there isn't any part of you that wants to. Instead, you say,

 

"Hi, I'm Antoine."

 

and every awful thing you've done and still have years to do falls away when he laughs and hugs you hard against him and whispers in your hair,

 

"Hi, Antoine, I'm Jason. Nice to meet you."

 

Jason kisses you like it's the first time, slow and thorough in a way neither of you has bothered with for months. He doesn't follow any of the well-traveled shortcuts that could have you breathless and begging in minutes, taking his time like he doesn't even know they exist: working at your mouth with firm, steady pressure until you open under him.

 

It's better than the first time when you catch his face in both hands, angling his head to press closer, get deeper, unhooked from fear or shame. You kiss him like you can't breathe without him, kiss until you're crazy with it, dragging it out, pushing yourself past what you think you can bear until you're all want, and there's no room in your universe for anything but him.

 

 

 **APRIL**

 _Ottawa (52-21-9)_   
****

 

By mutual non-communication you move out of the master and into one of the guest rooms downstairs. At first you tried to go on as friends, like nothing had changed--not in the last few months, not in the last few _years,_ pretty much since the early days of Bingo. You think sometimes, in a very Look-How-Grown-Up-And-Reasonable-I-Can-Be way, that maybe if it _had_ been that way early on--if you hadn't fallen into bed together more or less at first meeting--everything might not be so fucking heartbreaking now.

 

Anyway, you tried. You think it's pretty mature of you, but Jason doesn't even acknowledge the attempt, and when you finally give up, you feel nothing but relief. You manage to coexist relatively well with increasingly rarer communication. Eventually you stop telling Jason where you're going, and you stop expecting him to come home at night, though he usually does. It isn't friendly, and it isn't comfortable, but it's civilized, at least, and you think maybe, against all odds, you'll both survive.

 

It's the weekend before the first round of playoffs begins, and you're spending quality time with the Playstation and a carton of frozen custard when Jason comes home, early for a Friday night and not alone.

 

The guy moves with easy confidence and kisses Jason like he's already seen the end of the movie, and, okay, you lose it a little bit, you're not proud of that. It's instinctive, call-and-response: the guy gets a hand under Jason's shirt, palms the small of his back, and you're suddenly right up in the stranger's face, all glares and flashing teeth, and of the three of you, somehow Jason seems the least surprised.

 

"What the _fuck_ , man," the guy's yelling, at the same time Jason's fisting a hand in the collar of your shirt and hauling you back, spitting curses around your name, "Jesus fuck, let go, Toine, let go you stupid fuck."

 

He doesn't look anything like you. The other guy. He's older, late twenties, pretty in a careful, well-combed way. Fair-skinned and tow-headed, narrow hips and soft hands, and he wouldn't clear six feet even in skates.

 

You don't know what it means, that he's as close to your total opposite as anyone could probably find in this city. You don't know how it's supposed to make you feel.

 

"Toine. Christ, _Antoine_ _._ " You snap your gaze to the side, and Jason looks startled, just for a moment, when you meet his eyes. His voice softens, but it doesn't waver. "Antoine. Let go."

 

You lay awake in the guest bedroom listening to the blond guy's curses and Jason's breathless moans, thinking about his eyes the last time he looked at you, wondering what you'd seen in them before he'd turned away. Wondering if he'd ever say your name that way again.

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (47-21-12)_   
****

 

You stay close after that, distrustful of anything that could break the peace between you, so fragile and new, a tender and weak-legged thing still learning to walk. You don't go out, don't even linger long with the other guys if Jason's waiting, unwilling to tempt fate. Or yourself.

 

Jason lets you cling for about a week. When he asks you after the game one night if you're up for a club with some of the other guys, you reach for his hand without thought, turn the question around on him, and then look up in time to catch his rueful smile.

 

"What?" you ask, instantly on the defensive, scrolling nervously back through the brief conversation to try to figure out where you went wrong. "What did I say?"

 

"Antoine," he says on a sigh. "I'm asking you what _you_ want to do. There isn't a right answer."

 

He says it with a roll of his eyes, all fond affection, and you smack him in the shoulder by reflex, because he's got that patronizing-older-brother tone in his voice, and you're not gonna take that from someone who's almost a year younger than you. For some reason it seems to make him really happy, a grin softening his features as he drags his fingertips tickle-light down your side, so you smack him again.

 

"Okay, fine. Then, yes? We will go," you finish on a firm note, no question to your tone, ignoring the uncomfortable squirm of your conscience under your skin.

 

Going out is…weird. You've always been a natural flirt, as much as Jason in your own way, even back when you were wide-eyed and nearly-virginal. You spend the first hour stone sober and trying so hard not to accidentally send out the wrong signals that pretty soon you're scowling at everyone. Jason's doing his best not to notice, drinking for both of you and getting progressively looser, brighter, louder. A few times people try to draw him out to the floor, teammates and strangers alike, but he politely turns them all down, doing shots with the bartender instead and laughing with his head back, and you may be painfully, glacially slow, but eventually you _can_ take a fucking hint.

 

You lift the fresh glass from Jason's hands, down whatever's in it while he stares and stutters vague insults, then set it down and grab him by both wrists. You don't miss or imagine the way he shivers in your grasp.

 

"Dance with me," you tell him, dragging him into the crowd until the press of people is thick around you, forcing your bodies close.

 

His smile is soft and a little off-center as he asks, "Do I get a choice in this?" and it only grows when you shake your head.

 

You hold his gaze as you bring his hands down to your hips, waiting until you feel his fingers curve and clutch, thumbs slipping under the hem of your shirt to stroke over the sharp lines of bone. Your arms go around him at waist and shoulder, pulling him close, bodies shifting and catching and then suddenly slotting together, knees and hips and chests: Puzzle-perfect, made for this.

 

"This," you say into Jason's throat, mouthing words against his skin, "this, right here." Jason says " _yeah_ " a couple times, says your name on a breathless whine, and you're probably not talking about the same thing, he probably doesn't even know what he's saying, but it's alright. It feels right.

 

You dance and grind and grope until you're heat-flushed and slick with sweat, then you take him home and fuck him over the back of the couch, quick and hard. Afterward, you coax him upstairs into your bed and do it again slower, mouthing the hard brace of his spine, holding him down until he's fighting and cursing your name. He pants and whines, calls you a fucker and a goddamn tease, and when you finally curl your hand around his cock Jason comes in about three seconds, says, "Antoine jesus you gorgeous idiot," in a voice raw and rough and tender, and it feel like being forgiven.

 

 

 

 **MAY**

 _Ottawa (Conference Finals)_

 

 

Retrospect is a terrible thing. That much you learned a long time ago: countless early mornings spent staring backward through a headached telescope to the night before, wondering why the hell you'd said _that_ , done _this_. At least most of those times you could blame the alcohol.

 

It keeps ringing through you, like a song on the radio: how Jason had used your full name the way he hardly ever did; the sneering pity on the other guy's face; your own stupid surprise. Your hands fist every time you see it, useless. There's no one to fight, and you wouldn't have the strength for it if there were. You're so tired of fighting. So tired of holding the storm at bay, of holding on.

 

You were grasping for something you didn't have a word for; something bigger than the bed you shared. Something that couldn't fit in the cups of coffee he poured before you drove to practice, because he knew you weren't entirely human that early in the morning until you'd been flooded with caffeine. You wanted him to name it, the feeling that was too big for your chest, give it substance and take its power away at the same time; make it real and share a little of the weight, so you could learn to breathe again. By the time Jason could give you what you wanted, your hands were too clawed and bent from holding on to take it.

 

He told you he loved you, and you dreamt that night of fire. Surrounded, enflamed, devoured. You didn't have to be very clever to read the warning in that. Your nightmares had never been very subtle.

 

When things got going with Chris it was always dreams of drowning; variations on a theme every night for weeks on end. The ice cracked under your skates, and you couldn't get a breath, couldn't figure out which way was up. Darkness all around, in every direction, and there was something moving in it, something that had teeth. You always woke up before you could see what it was.

 

You think now that it was nothing more than your own guilt, your own battered and treacherous heart. The part of you that knew how you'd come to regret it when you finally got what you wanted. Finally pushed hard enough; pushed until Jason was tired of pulling you back in, and you could be alone again. S _afe_.

 

Safe and alone in a hotel room across the city, a few months and miles between you for perspective, the path from that night Jason told you he loved you to here looks a lot more obvious. It looks well-worn and clichéd and really fucking _dumb_. And still, no matter how hard you look, you can't see any other road you could have taken.

 

And certainly no way back to good.

 

 

 

 ****  
_Binghamton (first round defeat)_

 

 

It doesn't feel like a locker room after a playoff loss. Everyone's disappointed, of course, one or two genuinely pissed—mostly older guys who don't have much hope of cracking the big club whenever the new CBA's finally hammered out—but for the most part, the guys are upbeat and relaxed, ready to enjoy the summer and come back in September to the city where they belong.

 

Jason's one of the last guys out of the shower, and you hang around with Ray and Schubie making small talk about summer plans and trying not to look at the clock. When he finally reappears you say goodbye to the guys and slip away—there's a poker game at Ray's place next weekend, so it isn't _really_ goodbye—making a beeline for his locker.

 

"Hey," you say, voice pitched low, hand finding the small of his back. "You good?"

 

He looks over his shoulder at you, smile tired but relaxed, free of the guilt or frustration you were afraid to see there. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just tired. Sorry I took so long, I think I started to fall asleep a little in there. Lemme just pack up and we can get out of here."

 

He blinks at you, a drop of water slipping off his long lashes and rolling down his cheek. Without thought you bring your hand up to his face, brushing it away with your thumb, and his smile twists with amusement even as gaze turns slightly soft. Blood heats your face and you jerk your hand away.

 

"You had something on your face," you explain, clearing your throat.

 

"Oh, did I? I thought we were just having a moment."

 

"Go to hell," you say without heat, and Jason grins, pats your cheek and says, "Yeah, I love you, too."

 

And it's not like he's never said it before, or like you don't already know, but it does something to you to hear the words. Something strange and kind of uncomfortable and not a little girly, which is why you cuff him lightly in the back of the head and say, "Gonna go warm up car. If you are not done in five minutes I leave without you."

 

Jason scrunches his face up at that, smacking you back before you retreat out of reach; but as you head out the door you look back one last time, seeing that soft light still in his eyes, and you know he's heard you loud and clear.

 

 

 **JUNE**

 _Ottawa (Stanley Cup Finals)_

 

 

The anthem crests and the Corel Centre trembles, the combined force of 20,000 voices lifted in adulation hammering at the steel supports until you'd almost swear you can feel the ice whine under your feet. The words are a rough, soundless hum in your throat, dragged away and lost in the crash of noises around you, the heavy thump of blood filling your head. 60 minutes are all that stand between you and—that thing you haven't allowed yourself to say, your mind shying away even now, refusing to look it in the face. You're exactly as superstitious as every other guy on the ice, conscious of the way fate twists when you tempt it too much. How it can double back and bite the very hand that holds it, no matter how tight the grasp.

 

You breathe, move, push your body past what it can bear and you don't think. The game goes by like it's a story someone's telling, flat pages of color and light, quick breath and sharp eyes, light feet and soft hands. Out on the ice everything else burns away, and you have one thought, one purpose. With the clock counting down above your head your life is simple again. Adrenaline fills the empty spaces, whites your mind and washes it clean, and this could be all you ever need. It could be enough.

 

The crowd counts down to zero. The buzzer sounds, and through a daze you feel the arms of your teammates surround you, hear the whoops and screams of joy and taste the sting of salt as the arena gives in to complete pandemonium.

 

You've won.

 

You're more than a month shy of 23, and you've just accomplished the single goal you've spent your whole short life working for, the two decades since you first strapped on a pair of skates dedicated to this moment. All the work, all the sacrifice, all the practice and pain and prayer has led you to this place, where you and your teammates stand alone together, unrivaled, nothing left to hope for and no higher point to reach.

 

It's all you ever thought you wanted and needed, your friends beside you and the Cup waiting, cold and heavy, to be lifted above your head, and now that it's finally here, you know for sure that it can never, will never be enough.

 

 

 _Binghamton_

 

 

You dream you're on the ice. It has to be a dream, though it's not the one you've had a hundred times before. There's no depthless water beneath the ice, and no dark shape moving through it, waiting for you to fall. This ice is thin and smooth and regular, colorless and clear except where it's broken up by lines and face-off dots, and at the centre, where you're standing, the slightly muddled logos of the sponsors and the thick, bold letters spelling out the name of the arena.

 

You think you remember hearing once that your brain can't make sense of writing in a dream, and that would support what your heart and senses are telling you—that you're awake, that this is real—except that you know you haven't stood in the Corel Centre in more than a year.

 

The thought moves through you, and it's as if the realization flips a switch as your dream-world explodes in sound. The deafening roar jerks your head up, and with the loss of silence you are suddenly no longer alone, surrounded by teammates—ones you played with this year, and last year, and some you've never seen before—and above them, ringing the rink with color and noise, more fans than the arena can fit, pressed together shoulder to shoulder and hip to hip, all of them in various states of losing their damn minds.

 

Their eyes are mostly on the ice, on the team, but as you watch them their attention shifts, swings like a single organism to one point, and the chaos of noise filling the arena redoubles until your ears ring. You feel your teammates shuffle around you, faces pointed in the same direction, the same excitement barely tamped down, thrumming just beneath the surface. You turn with them, though it feels like someone else is operating your body, leaving you without a choice. A sudden hush descends, a waiting, breathless silence, and the frantic joy beating through every heart around you is terror in your own chest, because you know what you're about to see.

 

You jerk your head away, a blur of silver streaking your vision, ignoring the words flowing over the P.A. system: the acknowledgements and congratulations, the details of your team's victory. You've had this dream before, too, both sleeping and awake, and this was always your favorite moment. You don't understand the numb fear gripping your heart, making it hard to breath; don't know why you're looking away or what you're looking for amid the knot of your teammates until you find Jason's face, see those too-blue eyes lock with yours.

 

He smiles at you, and the fear jumps and surges in you, that feeling of _wrong_. It's been months since Jason looked at you like this, twisted up and a little angry and so fucking sad. The smile is weak, thin-lipped, fake and painful to look at when you know his real smile so well, the way it crinkles his nose and draws out faint dimples, the way it lights up his eyes.

 

You're grateful when the feeble attempt at a smile slips from his mouth a moment later, when his gaze flickers and drops from yours. Then he's turning away, slipping between your teammates and instantly becoming lost in the crowd as it swells around you, as the gleaming silver riding the edge of your vision moves closer; and in that instant, caught between going after him and turning to meet your destiny, you understand the fear that's lived just beneath the surface all these months like a second skin. You understand, with perfect clarity, the choice you have to make.

 

Only it doesn't feel like a choice. You don't hesitate for a second. You've had a taste of a life without Jason, in those cold early months of the season that you spent tearing him and yourself apart. Things aren't perfect now—things will _never_ be perfect, it's an impossible standard you've spent too long with in your mind—and there's a lot of work left to be done, but that's okay. You don't want anything but the chance to make things right, and you have that now. There's no way you're going to let it go.

 

You find Jason at the edge of the tunnel, nearly lost from sight, but not gone, not yet gone, still within reach. He's waiting for you, face open and uncertain, and for a moment just before you reach him the sound swells and rushes around you, and you know, in the strange logic of dreams, that if you turned around right now the Cup would be there, close enough to touch.

 

Then you're there, crossing the last distance and pulling him into a kiss, and the noise fades and disappears, the world around you dissolving until there's nothing but Jason, warm and smiling in your arms, telling you to open your eyes, that it's time to get out of bed and meet the day, and you wake up.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2011 mini-bang (10,000 word) challenge at [reallybigsticks](http://community.livejournal.com/reallybigsticks/) on Livejournal.


End file.
